


Footloose

by McGinnisINC



Series: Love Doctor [2]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 00:46:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6216814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McGinnisINC/pseuds/McGinnisINC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One-shot. Leonard Snart/OFC. Meg has some weird powers. Len's just happy she's alive. Set during the prison break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Footloose

**Author's Note:**

> I named the OFC. It was too difficult forgoing a name. Feel free to check out my tumblr for more Captain Cold awesomeness and one-shots and headcanons: captcold1shots.

tw: gore.

“I lost my feet.”

Len barely registered what she had said until he reached Meg’s side. She was stretched out on the metal slab, mostly naked, her face pinched tight in pain.

“What?” he asked, his head swinging around the room, making sure there wouldn’t be any Russian surprises. 

“I lost my feet,” she gritted out between labored breaths. 

Len glanced down at her feet, trying to make sense of exactly what the hell that meant except… her feet were … gone. Instead, she was left with bloody stubs, the skin torn ragged like the blade they used hadn’t been that sharp. His stomach dropped and the air suddenly felt colder. 

She wasn’t a fighter. What kind of monsters just chop off a non-fighter’s feet? Soviet bastards, that’s who.

“They’ll grow back,” she sighed as her eyes fluttered shut. “They were trying to slow me down – slow the rescue down. Can’t run away without feet right? They took them somewhere – if you can find them, it’ll be better but I think they hid them so I’ll just have to regrow them.”

“Re…grow…” Len muttered. 

Now see, Len was a pretty open-minded guy. Have to think outside to the box to be as successful a crook as he was. Demi-goddesses, resurrected assassins, time travel – the past few weeks had been a lesson in dealing with weird shit. He knew the meta humans Barry Allen had faced were capable of some really fucking weird shit, but when the quiet doctor had been recruited for this legendary mission, Len had taken one look at her and written her off as normal. 

Or at least pretty normal. As normal as lady with glowing healing hands can be. But that was apparently a recent development. Before that, he’d assumed she’d been standard cookie-cutter, rich parents, went to med school, nagging Messiah complex, etc. 

And then he’d seen a bullet crash straight through her skull and out the backside of her head – along with her fucking brain. He’s watched her hit the floor and stay there. He’d cursed himself for not handling Valentina on his own – she’d put a hand on his shoulder and said, “I’ve got her. Stay with Ray.” And for a moment he’d insisted and then he thought about it and decided, hey, the two ladies had shared a pretty passionate kiss – maybe Meg could convince Valentina to turn around and leave the lab. 

The guilt had gnawed at him, colder than he was comfortable with. He’d gone to the medical bay and sat on a gurney, swinging his legs back and forth irritably while replaying the scene in his head. 

It wasn’t until he’d gone to rescue Mick that his partner had asked, “Who’s rescuing Meg?” 

“Meg is dead,” he had replied, as his hand tightened around the handle of his cold gun. 

“Shit,” Mick had grunted. “Guess they decided she wasn’t a good enough hostage.”

“She was never captured,” Len had replied. “Valentina shot her at the lab.”

Mick’s eyebrows had shot up almost to his skull trim. “Nah, partner – I saw her with my own two eyes. She’s up and about – locked up, probably, but alive. They have her somewhere in this prison.”

And then Len was there, standing over a footless Meg. 

He wasted a breath to sigh and then pulled Meg into his arms. She moaned deeply and Len quickly realized her missing feet were not the full extent of her injuries. “I got you,” he promised her. “Can you hold and shoot the gun?”

Meg pulled her head up and blinked slowly. “Yes.” But Len was unconvinced and cocked an eyebrow. “I’m just tired,” she assured him. “It takes a lot of energy but I can do it – I promise.”

Len pivoted the leg with the holster out far enough that Meg was able to reach down and grab it. Her face was still pale, her breathing was still short and shallow but her grip was strong. “Aren’t you glad they didn’t take my hands?” she joked. 

For a moment, Len was floored. He glanced down at the bloody stubs, glanced up at her deadpanned face and laughed – loudly. “You’re seriously fucked up,” he told her, not unkindly. 

“That’s probably fine,” she shot back, hefting the gun higher.

They only had one chance to use it though – the escaping prisoners didn’t care much about the feet-less woman being carried by the guy in a guard’s uniform. Len noted that his words of advice had stuck with Sara – she hadn’t smoked Stein. They made it safely onto the ship just in time to avoid Valentina going nuclear.

“What a shame,” Meg would later say. “She was such a good kisser.” 

The next few hours were brutal. Len had never watched someone regrow limbs before and he soundly decided that he never wanted to again. Meg was placed on one of the medical bay gurneys. Ray was laid out on the gurney next to her – sleeping his injuries off with a strong sedative. Stein, though exhausted, came to stand side-by-side with Len and loom over Meg.

“We should clean the injuries,” Stein announced.

Meg was coiled tight, arms wrapped around herself, shaking with sharp tremors. Her eyes were closed, face pinched tight, her pink bottom lip turned red as her teeth dug into it. Len thought she was too far gone to have heard Stein until she let out a deep breath and on the tail of her exhale, said, “No. Don’t clean it. I can’t get infected.”

Stein took a step closer to her. “I’m aware you’re impervious to infection, Meg. But if we clean the… stumps, perhaps it will be one less thing for you to waste your energy on.”

“It’s okay, Martin,” she forced out. “It’s not that much more energy.” But her face tightened perceptively. 

“You should go check on your better half,” Len suggested, crossing his arms. 

Stein hesitated.

“They’ll grow back, Martin,” Meg joked. “Whether you’re here or not.”

Finally, he left to check on Jax.

“Never thought he’d leave,” Len joked. 

Her face tightened again, and her body moved in one quick spasm. Len took a step closer and then paused when she shook her head. “You should go check on your other half, too,” she suggested.

“Mick is fine,” he shot back. “Mick still has both feet. We’re still working on a brain, but the feet are there.”

Meg tried to smile and Len appreciated the effort. “You have enough brains for the both of you,” she said.

Len took another step forward and leaned a hip on the bed. “I’m not sure that’s exactly the compliment you were intending,” he shot back. For a moment he thought he could distract her enough to get her mind of her regrowing limbs but them a deep moan vibrated out of her throat. 

Her legs clenched together and Len glanced down the length of her. The skin where her legs stopped had been ragged and torn – now they had smoothed out. Len hadn’t even noticed that. He leaned a bit further over and noted that the exposed bone had also lengthened. True to her word, her feet were regrowing. 

“Can you take pain meds?”

“Don’t need them.”

“Sweetheart, if anyone needs to take the edge off – it’s you.”

“Fine, don’t want them. Can’t feel what’s being healed.”

“Are you controlling the… healing?” 

“Not really. It’ll happen regardless.”

“So, maybe you should just… knock out,” he drawled.

“Nope.”

“Nope?”

“Too much of a control freak.”

“How long does this usually take?” 

“Depends.”

“On what?” 

“If this was the only injury, it would be healed already,” she explained. “The worse the injury, the more time it takes. If I get injured in quick secession, each wound takes longer to heal.”

“Where else are you injured?” Len asked, eyes narrowing up and down her body.

She had refused to be changed – whether because of modesty or pain, Len didn’t know – so she was still in the ratty shirt and jeans, which had been cut up enough to show more skin than clothing. All of the exposed skin he could see was unblemished but he knew she had been in pain when he lifted her earlier.

“There were some burns on my side,” she explained. Len couldn’t see them.

“Were?” 

“They aren’t there anymore. They were older than the… amputations,” she clarified.

“So that’s all it takes to slow down your healing?” Len asked, crossing his arms. But already an idea had wormed its way into his brain. That idea took hold as Meg closed her eyes tight. “What else did they do to you?” He almost dreaded her answer.

It took a long moment for her to answer – during which, her body gave another spasm and Len noted her heel bones had reformed. Breathlessly she listed, “The headshot took mere moments to heal, I got shot in the shoulder though while I was trying to escape, then shot in the heart – or close, and then there was a break during the transportation and then they cut me a bit just to experiment, they cut off my pinky finger to see if it would reattach, they cut off another finger to see if it would regrow and it did, then they moved on to burning to see if I could still heal cauterized wounds.” 

Len’s face was pasty by the time she was done and then his expression completely darkened. His eyes, usually a stormy grey, glinted icily. “Those fucking bastards.”

Meg gave a small, pained shrug. “Usually people start with the cutting, move on to the burning, and then start removing body parts,” she tried to joke. Instead of the chuckle she’d been hoping for, Len’s expression only darkened. “Hey,” she began, reaching out to grab a forearm. His muscles jumped and he didn’t uncross his arms but he allowed the contact. “My feet are literally regrowing – my humor is going to be morbid. Accept it.”

After a moment Len nodded and Meg released his arm. They remained in silence for a while, absent Meg’s occasional groan or quick exhale. Tendons were forming and the beginning of toes sprouted. 

“Usually?” Len asked.

“Hm?” Meg made a noise in the back of her throat.

“You said usually people start with the cutting,” he reminded her, lip peeling back in disgust. “Is this a common occurrence?”

Meg smiled. “Only once before, besides my own experimentations.” Len didn’t say anything so she continued. “After the accident that gave me my powers, my husband’s lab found out about my powers and wanted to see how far it could go. Technically, it was their bio-genetics that gave me my powers anyway, so they felt it was probably fine to lock me up and see what they had created. I escaped. I hid. I was found again. I escaped again – ran into Dr. Stein, who got me somewhere safe and I’ve been lurking about ever since.”

“You experimented with your own powers? You don’t seem like the type to be into self-mutilation,” Len said. It was the closest thing to a joke she’d heard him make so she smiled a little wider. 

“I’m not but I needed to see what I could do.”

“And what can you do?”

“Survive everything I’ve been through so far.”

“A bullet to the brain is pretty impressive to survive,” Len commented lightly.

“I cut my head off once,” she admitted. Len stared wide-eyed at her and she instantly regretted saying anything. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I told you that.”

“It’s fine…” Len muttered. “I’m watching your feet grow back – I really shouldn’t be surprised you could survive beheading. Though, I’m not going to ask how you did it.”

She cut him off quickly, assuring him, “I won’t tell you how I did it.”

Awkward silence descended before Len asked, “Think you could survive a nuclear explosion?”

Meg smiled. “No clue. Maybe I should test it out, huh?”

Len just shook his head, smiling a little to himself. “Looks like all your piggies came back from the market,” he observed.

Meg glanced down at her feet. True to his word, her toes were all back. Bracing herself for how stiff she knew they would be, she wiggled them a little. “Welcome back,” she murmured. She sat up and Len quickly strode to her side, hovering a little bit. “I’m good,” she promised. She swung her legs off the gurney and took a deep breath and stood up.

And her legs gave out. 

Luckily, Len’s hovering paid off and he grabbed her around the waist, pulling her against him before she could fall over. Her forehead pressed into the crook of his neck and he shivered when she exhaled along the sensitive skin. His arms moved slightly down her back as he readjusted his grip, his calloused fingers dragging along her exposed flesh.

“Sure,” he drawled the word out. “You’re good. You’re just… peachy.” 

Meg rolled her eyes but smiled. “I need to heal Ray,” she said, nodding to the passed-out scientist. 

“He’ll be fine,” Len replied. Meg noticed he still hadn’t bothered to release her. “His limbs are all still attached.”

“I’ll rest for thirty more minutes,” Meg decided aloud. “No more than that.”

“And then you should probably take a shower,” Len suggested. “You’re beginning to smell a little… sour.”

“You don’t seem to mind,” Meg shot back. 

His eyebrow cocked upwards and the corner of his mouth followed. He glanced down at their bodies pressed together and then swept his eyes up to meet her gaze from underneath his eyelashes. “No,” he drawled. “I don’t suppose I do.” His hand trailed up and down almost absently and then he stiffened, tilting his head to the side. “Your hair…” he murmured. “It wasn’t this long before.”

He found a tendril and wound it around his finger. Meg couldn’t see how long it was, and didn’t bother trying to look behind her – she was too stiff. “The healing process stimulates growth,” she explained. “Same with my nails.” She held up her hand – her nails were about an inch longer than they really should have been.

“You have longer talons than Kendra,” he commented. And then his arms tightened around her and he picked her up the necessary three inches till she was able to sit back on the gurney. Len reached down, hooked an arm around her knees and pulled them up until Meg was fully reclined. 

“Shall I provide a sedative?” Gideon’s voice interrupted.

“Yes,” Len said at the same time Meg spoke, “No.”

“No,” Meg repeated, this time directed to Len. “Thirty minutes.”

“Thirty minutes,” Len agreed, walking backwards slowly. 

“Len.”

He stopped walking, leaning on the balls of his feet. “Meg.”

“Thank you. For staying. No one has ever stayed – not unless they were observing, you know.” She realized she was rabbling so she ended with, “So, um, thanks.” 

“I mean, how many people can say they’ve watch someone grow new feet?” Len responded. “I do enjoy novelty.” And then he twirled around and left.

Meg closed her eyes and didn’t open them for seven hours. When she finally did wake up, she found a pile of new clothes, a nail-clipper, and a note that just said, “So much for thirty minutes.”


End file.
